If the grand formation were compared to a pile of fire, then the ant beasts would be the pieces of wood fueling the flames to burn even more fiercely.
Shui Miao, multitasking with his mind, directed the Soul Devouring Force straight into the depths of the mountain.
The ant beasts, upon sensing the terrifying presence of the Soul Devouring Force, scattered in panic, not knowing what to do.
Even these creatures, having never encountered such a dreadful force before, felt fear.
The Soul Devouring Force smoothly entered the queen ant’s chamber. By the time the flying ants realized what was happening, the force had already attached itself to the queen ant. Controlled by Shui Miao’s will, the queen ant’s body began to corrode rapidly.
A sharp pain caused the queen ant to violently struggle, throwing all the flying ants into chaos.
“This queen ant’s body is incredibly corrosive!”
“Great! Once I devour the queen, my Soul Devouring Force will increase by more than double!”
“Attack! Kill them all!”
Excited, Shui Miao’s grand formation flared up intensely. He unleashed his full power, instantly reducing thousands of ant beasts surrounding him to ashes.
The ant beasts died in shrieks of agony.
Yet, more ants foolishly rushed forward again, continuing to throw their lives away…
Shui Miao was speechless. At this rate, the entire ant beast population would be wiped out, leaving not a single one alive.
Inside the mountain, the giant queen ant writhed in hysteria, her massive body squirming desperately. Many flying ants charged headfirst into the dark, devouring force, making futile sacrifices like moths flying into a flame.
Time passed. At the entrance of the Luosha Realm, Luosha sea monsters and desert giant apes were locked in fierce battle, the fighting brutal and bloody.
Chaos and danger were everywhere, filled with monstrous beasts. This was Shui Miao’s first impression of the Luosha Realm.
About an hour later, the giant queen ant deep within the mountain was finally consumed by Shui Miao’s Soul Devouring Force. Shui Miao gained access to the queen ant’s thoughts and discovered that their minds were surprisingly simple: the queen’s sole purpose was to reproduce relentlessly, while the ant beasts ventured outside to devour spiritual energy and return it to the queen, who would then use the energy to produce even more eggs.
Their prey was abundant. To the east lay the territory of the Luosha Ghost Kingdom, where the ant beasts frequently hunted ghosts.
Additionally, every summer, countless mosquito beasts would appear here.
Summer was the season for the ant beasts to harvest and reproduce aggressively.
Indeed, this place had the four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—and experienced sunrise and sunset.
However, the sun here was a blood-red sun, rising from the Luosha Blood Sea and setting into the abyssal west. Every morning, the entire Luosha Realm was shrouded in blood mist, which served as both the source of life and a nightmare for its inhabitants. During summer, the blood sun was especially brutal—inhaling too much blood mist caused living beings to explode, turning them into more blood mist. In winter, the blood sun was bitterly cold, freezing any living being into a block of blood.
Therefore, the Luosha Realm appeared extremely desolate during summer and winter, seemingly devoid of life. In reality, all living beings burrowed underground, only emerging at night.
Right now, it was nighttime in the Luosha Realm, and it was winter.
The queen ant was dead, the ant beasts were gradually being slaughtered, and hundreds of thousands of ant beasts had perished. The grand formation continued to accumulate spiritual energy.
Another hour passed, and nearly all the ant beasts were finally dead.
Shui Miao began refining all the spiritual energy absorbed from the ant beasts, purifying the impurities. With a thought, he started drawing the energy back. Demons and monsters alike began absorbing the energy as well. The amount of spiritual energy contained within hundreds of thousands of ant beasts was terrifying. They absorbed furiously until they could absorb no more, but there was still a vast amount of energy left. Shui Miao then used the Holy Yuan Ring to absorb and store the remaining energy.
Then, Shui Miao ordered his strategist to lead the various units into the mountain, to eliminate any remaining ant beasts and seize the mountain as their base.
Meanwhile, Shui Miao himself, along with Bai Feng and the others, entered the egg chamber, where tens of thousands of ant eggs were stored, waiting only for summer to hatch and reproduce.
Shui Miao withdrew his Soul Devouring Force, which had increased by two-fold compared to before.
Looking at the countless watermelon-sized eggs, Bai Feng asked, “Shui Miao, what do you plan to do with these eggs?”
“First, I will use my mind to subdue the young queen larvae inside the eggs. Once the queen hatches, she can control them. Then we’ll raise them and use them for ourselves.” Without delay, Shui Miao immediately assigned Bai Feng and the others to manage the overall situation while he personally selected the queen eggs one by one, activating his mind to enter the eggs and subdue the young larvae.
The queen eggs were especially large, and Shui Miao selected over a dozen.
The larvae inside were still very young, possessing little consciousness and were easily subdued.
What Shui Miao needed to do now was to communicate with them and implant his thoughts into their young minds.
This was both simple and exciting.
They were like innocent children. Shui Miao channeled his spiritual energy to connect with them. Some younglings with weak mental strength died on the spot from the pressure, but about half managed to endure the mental contact. When the time seemed right, Shui Miao began implanting his thoughts into their minds while simultaneously using spiritual energy to sustain their lives.
This was Shui Miao’s first time doing such a thing. Originally intending to implant thoughts, the reality became a direct replication of his own mind.
One by one, the eggs died.
Finally, only two unusually large eggs remained, having stubbornly endured Shui Miao’s mind replication.
At the thought of personally creating two queens with the same consciousness as himself, Shui Miao became ecstatic. For safety, he immediately sealed them inside the Holy Yuan Ring and began nourishing them with spiritual energy.
The remaining eggs, without spiritual energy to sustain them, would be unable to hatch.
Outside, order was being reestablished in a tense yet orderly manner.
Shui Miao, sensing nothing amiss with his spiritual perception, sat cross-legged and prepared to subdue the artifact spirit of the Immortal Spirit Mirror.
As Shui Miao’s consciousness entered the artifact spirit, just as he was about to sense the mountain, a little boy appeared. He had golden horns, wore silver-white armor, and wielded a pair of massive axes far too large for his body. Tilting his head, he looked at Shui Miao and said, “So you’re Shui Miao, the one my sister Cai Die said I should help?”
“I am Shui Miao. And who are you?”
Shui Miao carefully examined the little boy. He was no taller than a meter, slightly chubby, with golden fur covering his skin beneath the silver-white armor. It was hard to tell whether he was human or some kind of monster.
“Nice to meet you. I am Golden-Horned Bull King, a divine beast from the Immortal Realm. I willingly became the artifact spirit of Sister Cai Die’s Immortal Spirit Mirror. If you’re here to subdue me, then bring out your weapon!” The little boy twirled his axes up and down, like a circus performer.
The Immortal Spirit Essence!
That was the very essence the Mountain God had mentioned—the essence extracted from Yang-type spiritual energy by Golden Immortals.
Once he obtained the Immortal Spirit Essence, his spiritual energy could transform into immortal energy.
Shui Miao’s heart stirred. Looking at the little boy, he furrowed his brows and asked, “Did Sister Cai Die tell you all this? Did she say anything else?”
“Of course, but you must defeat me first before I’ll tell you. If you can’t beat me, I won’t say a word.” The little boy pouted, clearly not taking Shui Miao seriously at all. “Come on, come on, I’m in a hurry to go to sleep.”
Seeing the little boy’s arrogance, Shui Miao couldn’t help but smirk coldly. “Tell me, how exactly do I defeat you?”
“It’s simple—just take my axes from me.”
The little boy sneered at Shui Miao. “Well then, I guess your Soul Devouring Force won’t be of any use here, will it?”
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